Showing papers on "Ideology published in 1994"

The transformation of European social democracy

Abstract: This book explains the contrasting strategies and their electoral fortunes of social democratic parties in the major European democracies in the 1970s and 1980s. Going beyond approaches that focus on the influence of class structure and political economic institutions, The Transformation of European Social Democracy analyses the party's competitive situation in the electoral arena, the constraints and opportunities of party organisation, and the role of ideological legacies to explain the strategic choices social democratic parties have made and the electoral results they have achieved. Far from being doomed to decline, social democracy's success depends on its ability to transform its political message and to construct new electoral coalitions.

Radical right-wing populism in Western Europe

Abstract: Social change and multicultural society in Western Europe against diversity - new right ideology in the new Europe individualism and xenophobia - radical right-wing populism in a comparative perspective the social basis of radical right-wing populism political conflict in the postmodern age.

Writings for a Liberation Psychology

Abstract: Foreword by Elliot G. Mishler Note on the Translation Introduction PART I: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF PSYCHOLOGY 1 Toward a Liberation Psychology Translated by Adrianne Aron 2 The Role of the Psychologist Translated by Adrianne Aron 3 Power, Politics, and Personality Translated by Phillip Berryman 4 Political Socialization: Two Critical Themes Translated by Adrianne Aron 5 The Political Psychology of Work Translated by Cindy Forster PART II: WAR AND TRAUMA 6 War and Mental Health Translated by Anne Wallace 7 War and the Psychosocial Trauma of Salvadoran Children Translated by Anne Wallace 8 Religion as an Instrument of Psychological Warfare Translated by Tod Sloan 9 The Psychological Value of Violent Political Repression Translated by Anne Wallace PART III: DE-IDEOLOGIZING REALITY 10 "The People": Toward a Definition of a Concept Translated by Adrianne Aron 11 Public Opinion Research as a De-ideologizing Instrument Translated by Jean Carroll and Adrianne Aron 12 The Lazy Latino: The Ideological Nature of Latin American Fatalism Translated by Phillip Berryman Bibliography Complete Works of Ignacio Martin-Baro Works by Other Authors Acknowledgments

The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations

Abstract: This landmark study analyzes and compares the ideologies that develop among unequal social groups. Mary Jackman employs a unique national survey to investigate all three of the most prominent relations of inequality in the United States: gender, class, and race. Where other scholars have emphasized conflict as the emblem of intergroup oppression, Jackman proposes a theory in which both dominant and subordinate groups maneuver to avoid open hostility as they strive to control resources within the confines of their mutual relationship. Hostility, Jackman points out, creates resistance in a relationship. Dominant groups therefore try to preempt the use of force by following a velvet-glove strategy of 'sweet persuasion'. They are drawn especially to the ideological mold of paternalism, in which the coercion of subordinates is grounded in love rather than hate. Dominant-group members pronounce authoritatively on the needs and welfare of all and then profess to 'provide' for those needs. Love, affection, and praise are offered to subordinates on strict condition that they comply with the terms of the unequal relationship. Whether in the home or in the arena of class or race relations, paternalism wraps control and authority in an ideological cocoon in which discriminatory actions are defined as benevolent and affection is made contingent on compliance. Jackman's emphasis on the practice of coercive love in race, class, and gender relations is sure to generate controversy and further research. Sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and anyone interested in group ideology will find here a provocative challenge to conventional views.

Sports and male domination: the female athlete as contested ideological terrain.

Abstract: This paper explores the historical and ideological meanings of organized sports for the politics of gender relations. After outlining a theory for building a historically grounded understanding of sport, culture, and ideology, the paper argues that organized sports have come to serve as a primary institutional means for bolstering a challenged and faltering ideology of male superiority in the 20th century. Increasing female athleticism represents a genuine quest by women for equality, control of their own bodies, and self-definition, and as such represents a challenge to the ideological basis of male domination. Yet this quest for equality is not without contradictions and ambiguities. The socially constructed meanings surrounding physiological differences between the sexes, the present "male" structure of organized sports, and the media framing of the female athlete all threaten to subvert any counter-hegemonic potential posed by female athletes. In short, the female athlete-and her body-has become a contested ideological terrain.

New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity

Abstract: Part I: Culture and Identity in Contemporary Social Movements 1. Identities, Grievances, and New Social Movements - Hank Johnston, Enrique Larana, and Joseph R. Gusfield 2. Culture and Social Movements - Doug McAdam 3. The Reflexivity of Social Movements: Collective Behavior and Mass Society Theory Revisited - Joseph R. Gusfield 4. Ideology and Utopia after Socialism - Ralph H. Turner 5. A Strange Kind of Newness: What's "New" in New Social Movements? - Alberto Melucci Part II: Collective Actors in New Social Movements 6. Activist, Authorities, and Media Framing of Drunk Driving - John D. McCarthy 7. Transient Identities? Membership Patterns in the Dutch Peace Movement - Bert Klandermans 8. Identity Fields: Framing Processes and the Social Construction of Movement Identities - Scott A. Hunt, Robert D. Benford, and David A. Snow 9. Continuity and Unity in New Forms of Collective Action: A Comparative Analysis of Student Movements - Enrique Larana 10. Conflict Networks and the Origins of Women's Liberation - Carol Mueller Part III: Collective Action and Identity in Changing Political Contexts 11. New Social Movements and Old Regional Nationalisms - Hank Johnston 12. Greens, Cabbies, and Anti-Communists: Collective Action During Regime Transition in Hungary - Mate Szabo 13. Social Movements in Modern Spain: From the Pre-Civil War Model to Contemporary NSMs - Jose Alvarez-Junco 14. The Party's Over - So What Is to Be Done? - Richard Flacks The Contributors Index

Ideology and the theory of political choice

Abstract: There is no unified theory that can explain both voter choice and where choices come from. Hinich and Munger fill that gap with their model of political communication based on ideology.Rather than beginning with voters and diffuse, atomistic preferences, Hinich and Munger explore why large groups of voters share preference profiles, why they consider themselves "liberals" or "conservatives." The reasons, they argue, lie in the twin problems of communication and commitment that politicians face. Voters, overloaded with information, ignore specific platform positions. Parties and candidates therefore communicate through simple statements of goals, analogies, and by invoking political symbols. But politicians must also commit to pursuing the actions implied by these analogies and symbols. Commitment requires that ideologies be used consistently, particularly when it is not in the party's short-run interest.The model Hinich and Munger develop accounts for the choices of voters, the goals of politicians, and the interests of contributors. It is an important addition to political science and essential reading for all in that discipline."Hinich and Munger's study of ideology and the theory of political choice is a pioneering effort to integrate ideology into formal political theory. It is a major step in directing attention toward the way in which ideology influences the nature of political choices." --Douglass C. North." . . represents a significant contribution to the literature on elections, voting behavior, and social choice." --Policy CurrentsMelvin Hinich is Professor of Government, University of Texas. Michael C. Munger is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina.

Black Women, Writing and Identity : Migrations of the Subject

Abstract: Black Women Writing and Identity is an exciting work by one of the most imaginative and acute writers around. The book explores a complex and fascinating set of interrelated issues, establishing the significance of such wide-ranging subjects as: * re-mapping, re-naming and cultural crossings * tourist ideologies and playful world travelling * gender, heritage and identity * African women's writing and resistance to domination * marginality, effacement and decentering * gender, language and the politics of location Carole Boyce-Davies is at the forefront of attempts to broaden the discourse surrounding the representation of and by black women and women of colour. Black Women Writing and Identity represents an extraordinary achievement in this field, taking our understanding of identity, location and representation to new levels.

Literacies of Power : What Americans Are Not Allowed to Know

Abstract: Literacies of Power: What Americans Are Not Allowed to Know, by Donaldo Macedo. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994. 206 pp. $15.95, paper. Reviewed by Patricia A. Young-Mitchell, University of California-Berkeley. The major premise of this book by University of Massachusetts professor of English and program director of Bilingual and English-as-a-Second-Language Studies Donaldo Macedo is that there exist, in the United States and other Western cultures, certain types of literacies or discourses that actually impede the dissemination of truth and knowledge. In this analysis of what he characterizes as the deceitful literacies of the powerful and their "pedagogy of big lies," Macedo implicitly frames true literacy as the power to dispel the myths surrounding significant historical events, political ideologies, educational constraints, and social agendas of American culture. Key among the themes touched upon in this book is the author's contention that in the United States the cultural reproduction of literacy uses institutional mechanisms to prevent independent critical thought, especially by those whom it seeks to dispossess. He subsequently identifies the nation's schools and its media as two of the most pervasive perpetuators of these lies because they are, in his view, the predominant vehicles through which dominant ideologies are projected. Literacies of Power is organized along five themes. In the introductory chapter, "Literacy for Stupidification: The Pedagogy of Big Lies," Macedo hypothesizes that an unfounded pedagogy has been used to keep Americans blind to the truth of Euro-American involvement in the wronging of the Western hemisphere. He attributes both this blindness and the belief in the myth of a "common culture" to Americans' general inability to create critical thought-that is, to their lack of mastery and knowledge of the literacies of power. Macedo demonstrates this through a comparison of Hirsch, Kett, and Trefil's (1988) Dictionary of Cultural Literacy and their list of "What Every American Needs to Know" to his own elaboration of American historical facts offered in this book's list of "What Every American Needs to Know but is Prevented from Knowing." As well, he suggests that next to the Western world's esteemed museums of fine art and science should be established museums of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and American slavery, the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, and the genocide of the American Indian-"museums of crime" that would serve to demystify the myths that often shroud the truth about American history and its dominant culture. In chapter two, "Our Common Culture: A Poisonous Pedagogy," Macedo emphasizes his contention that the big-lie theory, along with its philosophical twin-the poisonous pedagogy of an American culture based on Eurocentric ideals and practices yet masquerading as a "common" culture-together inhibit the achievement of a true common culture in the United States, one that allows persons of all races, genders, cultures, and language groups equal participation and representation in U.S. society. This theme is further explored in chapter three, "Our Uncommon Culture: The Politics of Race, Class, Gender and Language," which presents a conversation between Macedo and Brazilian educator-philosopher Paulo Freire. In their conversation, these two theorists engage in a dialogue about the development of an anticolonial society based on cultural production, which Macedo defines as the process by which particular groups of people produce, arbitrate, and corroborate their mutual ideologies. This chapter is also notable for Freire's penetrating reflections on his classic 1970 work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Macedo maintains in chapter four, "English Only: The Tongue-Tying of America," that the combined malapropisms of the American dominant group's pedagogical ideals involve schools and societal and government institutions alike in lies, deceit, humiliation, scare tactics, manipulation, and ridicule of non-White, non-male persons. …

Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics

Abstract: Part I. Exordium: 1. A positivist youth 2. Kicking the dead horse Part II. Narration: 3. Economics in the human conversation 4. The rhetoric of economics Part III. Division: 5. The Science word in economics 6. Three ways of reading economics to criticize itself 7. Popper and Lakatos: thin ways of reading economics 8. Thick readings: ethics, economics, sociology and rhetoric Part IV. Proof: 9. The rise of a scientistic style 10. The rhetoric of mathematical formalism: existence theorems 11. General equilibrium and the rhetorical history of formalism 12. Blackboard Marxism 13. Formalists as poets and politicians Part V. Refutation: 14. The very idea of epistemology 15. The tu quoque argument and the claims of rationalism 16. Armchair philosophy of economics: Rosenberg and Hausman 17. Philosophy of science without epistemology: the Popperians 18. The Rosenberg: reactionary modernism 19. Methodologists of economics, big-M and small 20. Getting 'rhetoric': Mark Blaug and the Eleatic Stranger 21. Coats/McPherson/Friedman: anti-meta-post-modernism 22. Splenetic rationalism, Austrian style 23. The economists of ideology: Heilbroner, Rossetti, and Mirowski 24. Rhetoric as morally radical Part VI. Peroration: 25. The economy as a conversation 26. The consequences of rhetoric.

Making a market : the institutional transformation of an African society

Abstract: 1. A proper marriage: new institutional economic anthropology 2. Transaction costs: the history of trade among the Orma 3. Distribution of the gains from trade 4. Agency theory: patron-client relations as a form of labor contracting 5. Property rights: dismantling the commons 6. Collective action: from community to state 7. Conclusion: ideology and the economy.

Law, Space, and the Geographies of Power

Abstract: This illuminating new volume offers a ground-breaking exploration into the intriguing and politically significant relationship between law and geography. Nicholas K. Blomley asserts that space and law, rather than being fixed, objective categories, have a crucial bearing on the deployment of power and the structuring of social life. Arguing that the geographies of law can be powerful--even oppressive--in combination with their implied claims concerning social life, Blomley clearly demonstrates how, over the last two centuries, legal judgment has entailed the adjudication of issues of power and space. The volume synthesizes ideas from the fields of law and geography to construct a "critical legal geography" that both documents Blomley's theory and challenges the orthodox treatment of law, space, and power. With unusual insight into the ideology and intricacy of legal reasoning, the book shows how--contrary to appearance-- representations (or "geographies") of the spaces of political, social, and economic life are deeply embedded within legal thought and practice. These representations, he argues, touch on all aspects of legal life including property, constitutional interpretation, contractual relations, crime, and intergovernmental law. To illustrate the book's analysis, empirical chapters offer case studies in Britain, the United States, and Canada, to reveal how legal geographies reflect complex and often contesting visions of social life under law. In a wide ranging exploration, Blomley unpacks struggles over U.S. occupational safety, the British miners' strike of 1984 - 1985, mobility and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and common law legal history.

The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800

Abstract: Books, and the printed word more generally, are aspects of modern life that are all too often taken for granted. Yet the emergence of the book was a process of immense historical importance and heralded the dawning of the epoch of modernity. In this much praised history of that process, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, as well as the study of modes of consciousness, to root the development of the printed word in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe.

The Qualitative-Quantitative Debate: New Perspectives.

Abstract: A significant report on a critical topic, this classic volume of the New Directions for Evaluation series is now in print and available again. Deep-seated antagonisms exist between qualitative and quantitative researchers. these tensions derive from differences in goals and epistemolgies. The purpose of this volume is to examine the nature of these differences, their origins, and their consequences. The contributors ask whether rapprochement is prossible and , if so, how the relationship between qualitative and quantitative inquiries maight be structured so that we cna be enriched rather than diminished by our diversity. The authors well represent both the qualitative and quantitative perspectives. But they are not partisans defending ideological turfs; they are only individuals trying to come to grips with the challenges that program evaluation faces because of a diversity of principles and practices. This is the 61st issue in the journal series New Directions for Evaluation. For more information on the series, please see the Journals and Periodicals page.

Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective

Abstract: Study Guide Preface and Acknowledgments Part I: Introduction The Past, Present, and Future of Social Inequality (David B. Grusky) Part II: Forms and Sources of Stratification The Functions of Stratification Some Principles of Stratification (Kingsley Davis & Wilbert E. Moore) The Dysfunctions of Stratification Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis (Melvin M. Tumin) Inequality by Design (Claude S. Fischer, Michael Hout, Martn Snchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler, and Kim Voss) Concluding Commentary to Part Two New Light on Old Issues: The Relevance of "Really Existing Socialist Societies" for Stratification Theory (Gerhard Lenski) Part III: The Structure of Modern Stratification Theories of Class Marx and Post-Marxists Alienation and Social Classes (Karl Marx) Classes in Capitalism and Pre-Capitalism (Karl Marx) Ideology and Class (Karl Marx) Value and Surplus Value (Karl Marx) Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (Ralf Dahrendorf) Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of Class Structure (Erik Olin Wright) A General Framework for the Analysis of Class Structure (Erik Olin Wright) Class Conflict in the Capitalist World Economy (Immanuel Wallerstein) Weber and Post-Weberians Class, Status, Party (Max Weber) Status Groups and Classes (Max Weber) Open and Closed Relationships (Max Weber) The Rationalization of Education and Training (Max Weber) The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (Anthony Giddens) Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique (Frank Parkin) Durkheim and Post-Durkheimians The Division of Labor in Society (Emile Durkheim) Are There Big Social Classes? (David B. Grusky and Jesper B. Srensen ) The Ruling Class and Elites Cassic Statements The Ruling Class (Gaetano Mosca) The Power Elite (C. Wright Mills) Elites and Power (Anthony Giddens) Contemporary Elites in "Mass Society," Capitalism, and Post-Capitalism The Political Class in the Age of Mass Society: Collectivistic Liberalism and Social Democracy (Edward A. Shils) The Inner Circle (Michael Useem) Post-Communist Managerialism

Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture

Abstract: Fast Cars, Clean Bodies examines the crucial decade from Dien Bien Phu to the mid-1960s when France shifted rapidly from an agrarian, insular, and empire-oriented society to a decolonized, Americanized, and fully industrial one. In this analysis of a startling cultural transformation Kristin Ross finds the contradictions of the period embedded in its various commodities and cultural artifacts -- automobiles, washing machines, women's magazines, film, popular fiction, even structuralism -- as well as in the practices that shape, determine, and delimit their uses. In each of the book's four chapters, a central object of mythical image is refracted across a range of discursive and material spaces: social and private, textual and cinematic, national and international. The automobile, the new cult of cleanliness in the capital and the colonies, the waning of Sartre and de Beauvoir as the couple of national attention, and the emergence of reshaped, functionalist masculinities (revolutionary, corporate, and structural) become the key elements in this prehistory of postmodernism in France. Modernization ideology, Ross argues, offered the promise of limitless, even timeless, development. By situating the rise of "end of history" ideologies within the context of France's transition into mass culture and consumption, Ross returns the touted timelessness of modernization to history. She shows how the realist fiction and film of the period, as well as the work of social theorists such as Barthes, Lefebvre, and Morin who began at the time to conceptualize "everyday life," laid bare the disruptions and the social costs of events. And she argues that the logic of the racism prevalent in France today, focused on the figure of the immigrant worker, is itself the outcome of the French state's embrace of capitalist modernization ideology in the 1950s and 1960s.

Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts

Abstract: Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act clearly forbids an employer to discriminate against persons of color for reasons of personal or customer preference. Similarly, a qualified job applicant may not be rejected on the basis of linguistic traits linked to national origin. In contrast to racial discrimination, however, an employer has considerable latitude in matters of language, provided in part by a judicial system which recognizes in theory the link between language and social identity, but in practice is often confounded by blind adherence to a standard language ideology. The nature and repercussions of this type of linguistic discrimination are here explored. (Language and law, accent, discrimination, standard language ideology, critical language studies)*

Unnatural discourse. ‘Race’ and gender in geography

Abstract: Geographers’ long‐term involvement in the construction ‘race’ and gender has occurred through literally and metaphorically mapping out the world in ways that highlight, perpetuate and naturalize difference. This paper provides a critical analysis of the naturalization of these categories by revealing parallels in their social construction and in the ways in which they have been independently conceptualized. The focus is on the extent to which ‘race’ and gender as social constructs have been, and are, predicated upon biological categories. We argue for a conceptualization which, while eschewing notions of essentialism and determinism, integrates the biological and social, recognizing that distinctions between the biological and cultural are invariably socially constructed. We also highlight the extent to which social constructions are political constructions, sexism and racism being modes of thought which construct the body for ideological ends. We begin to chart the political strategies whereby d...

Ethical ideology and ethical judgment regarding ethical issues in business

Abstract: Differences in ethical ideology are thought to influence individuals' reasoning about moral issues (Forsyth and Nye, 1990; Forsyth, 1992). To date, relatively little research has addressed this proposition in terms of business-related ethical issues. In the present study, four groups, representing four distinct ethical ideologies, were created based on the two dimensions of the Ethical Position Questionnaire (idealism and relativism), as posited by Forsyth (1980). The ethical judgments of individuals regarding several business-related issues varied, depending upon their ethical ideology.

The metastases of enjoyment : six essays on woman and causality

Abstract: The recent experience of the Yugoslav war and the rise of "irrational" violence in contemporary societies provides the theoretical and political context of this book, which uses Lacanian psychoanalysis as the basis for a renewal of the Marxist theory of ideology. The author's analysis leads into a study of the figure of woman in modern art and ideology, including studies of "The Crying Game" and the films of David Lynch, and the links between violence and power/gender relations.

Fiddly Jobs, Undeclared Working and the Something for Nothing Society:

Abstract: Whilst it may be easy to dismiss ideological diatribes about `a something for nothing society' as empty rhetoric, there are relatively few recent studies with which to assess claims about `benefit ...

Interpretations of stress in institutions: the cultural production of ambiguity and burnout.

Abstract: This ethnographic study of interpretations of stress among hospital social workers reveals concrete ways in which institutional systems take form in the mundane actions and interpretations of individuals embedded in these systems. It also reveals how organizational cultures reflect and reinforce institutional conditions that have been negotiated in the interactions of individuals. Here, the institutional systems of medicine and social work come together in the everyday work of the social workers and result in two patterns of cultural dominance. Within these distinct types of culture emerge two forms of stress experience, including a dominant form, consistent with medical ideology, and a marginalized form, consistent with social work ideology. Some surprising patterns of interpretation emerge, including interpretations of ambiguity and burnout as normal, social, and desirable when the social work ideology is dominant. This institutional analysis of stress has theoretical, practical, and epistemological implications.

Contesting earth's future : radical ecology and postmodernity

Abstract: Radical ecology typically brings to mind media images of ecological activists standing before loggers' saws, staging anti-nuclear marches, and confronting polluters on the high seas. Yet for more than twenty years, the activities of organizations such as the Greens and Earth First! have been influenced by a diverse, less-publicized group of radical ecological philosophers. It is their work - the philosophical underpinnings of the radical ecological movement - that is the subject of this book. The book offers a balanced appraisal of radical ecology's principles, goals, and limitations. Michael Zimmerman critically examines the movement's three major branches - deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. He also situates radical ecology within the complex cultural and political terrain of the late 20th century, showing its relation to Martin Heidegger's anti-technological thought, 1960s counterculturalism, and contemporary theories of poststructuralism and postmodernity. The author describes the defining arguments and internecine disputes of the various schools of thought of radical environmentalism, among them the charge that deep ecology is an anti-modern, proto-fascist ideology. Reflecting both the movement's promise and its dangers, this book should be interesting reading for all those concerned with the worldwide ecological crisis.

Women, Ethnicity and Empowerment:

Abstract: This article critically examines the ideology of empowerment and its links to debates about solidarity and difference among women, especially those from oppressed and minority collectivities. The n...

Social revolutions in the modern world

Abstract: Introduction Part I. Doing Macroscopic Social Science: 1. A critical review of Barrington Moore's social origins of dictatorship and democracy 2. Wallerstein's world capitalist system: a theoretical and historical critique 3. The uses of comparative history in macrohistorical research Part II. Making Sense of the Great Revolutions: 4. Explaining social revolutions: in quest of a social-structural approach 5. Revolutions and the world-historical development of capitalism 6. France, Russia, and China: a structural analysis of social revolutions Part III. A Dialogue about Culture and Ideology in Revolutions: 7. Ideologies and revolutions: reflections on the French case, byWilliam H. Sewell, Jr 8. Cultural idioms and political ideologies in the revolutionary reconstruction of state power Part IV. From Classical to Contemporary social revolutions: 9. What makes peasants revolutionary? 10. Rentier state and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian revolution 11. Explaining revolutions in the contemporary Third World 12. Social revolutions and mass military mobilisation Conclusion: reflections on recent scholarship about social revolutions and how to study them.

Forming Academic Identities: Accommodation without Assimilation among Involuntary Minorities

Abstract: Institutional mechanisms influence students' ideology, which in turn has a positive influence on their academic performance. Latino and African American students who have participated in an untracking program for their high school careers develop a critical consciousness about their educational and occupational futures. The Latino and African American students in this untracking program become academically successful without losing their ethnic identity. They adopt the strategy of “accommodating without assimilating,” a pattern that Gibson associates with voluntary minorities but not involuntary minorities.

Servicing the Middle Classes: Class, Gender and Waged Domestic Work in Contemporary Britain

Abstract: The book concludes by considering the effects of the ideologies of motherhood, false kinship relations, and caring on the ways in which domestic workers are ...

This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India

Abstract: In the first part of the book, the authors present a general theory of ecological history which attempts a paradigm shift from Weberian and Marxian theories of human society. Here they ask under what conditions humans exercise prudence in their use of natural resources; they examine infrastructures, property systems, political ideologies, religions, social idioms and the belief structures that characterize human interactions with resource bases; they analyse the varieties of social conflict that appear over the exploitation of natural resources; and, finally, they explore the impact of changing patterns of resource use upon human societies. In the second part the authors provide a fresh interpretive history of pre-modern India. They also provide, in this section, an ecological interpretation of the caste system which adds a significant dimension to existing ideas on caste. In the third part the authors draw on a huge wealth of source material to offer a socioecological analysis of the modes of resources use which were introduced by the British, and which continued, with modifications, after Independence in 1947. (This is a paperback edition of the HB issued in 1992.)